which turned good photographers into great ones. berkeley photographer dorothy alang. these give you an idea of just how apalling bad the great reh depression was. the best we have, as well as movies, it's difficult to million how it was. we tend to look back through the safety net, which was created by the new deal. it was very difficult for young people to understand a time when there was no social safety net. when you lost your job, within a short period of time, you lost your home, food, everything. you were out on the street and your family broke up. it was an apalling time.

one tow which some people would like us to return. here's a guy himself, that's actually a light bounce off of fdr roosevelt. this was his chakra. this was march 4th, 1933. he made the statement and he made it, i didn't understand a long time. the point i was making, people were terrified. because it seemed like the economy had no bottom and the banks were going down and there was no federal deposit dollars. so imagine a time when we actually had a president who told us we should be courageous

rather than trafficked in fear. to his own advantage. there's been a long war on the new deal. it was when roosevelt got started. almost immediately, the more than great realized the lengths he was willing to go. at the beginning, roosevelt didn't understand how far he was going to go. the dupont family and the ones that set up the american liberty league. that was successful because they have unlimited amounts of money. there were so popular, they

were not able to stop it. they began to finance right-wing think tanks. they have been successful to the university of chicago economics department and notable fraud such as milton freed man. the idea of neoliberalism is there should be massive, selective tax cuts. margaret thatcher it is there is no alternative. of course that's absurd. there was an alternative. we have to connect the dots to understand what is going on today. i read the chronicle.

so what i've done is put together a montage of the murder of public sector, which is going on everyday. in fact all of the public sector is in body shape. public libraries, parks from the municipal to the national level. our character is among the worst in the world. the new deal deals with things in a different way. when i was going to school, california school's were the best. now they are among the worst with the new budget cuts. of course, my university is being privatized.

all of the higher education is being privatized. all through the uc system. how do you run a modern state with tax cuts? we resort to desperate, back last november, we were asked to vote to make four indian casinos in san diego county pony up money. i thought this was a joke. they voted to do it. now, the governor proposes to borrow against future revenues. how did they deal with these social problems when the

economic problems were far worse than what we can imagine today? this is from larry halprin's. and it has these quotes from roosevelt on the wall. he said in one of his talks to the people, "the test is not whether we have more, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little". it's a different philosophy than that which we have become used to. what i am going to show you is a lost civilization. it's a strange place. and yet, it becomes oddly familiar after a while because we built it and use it every day without knowing it.

it has been buried. the living new deal project is like an archaeological dig. we are going after the new deal in california, but hope to extend throughout the united states. i thought that i am, photographer robert dosson could photo. it's gradually become a collaborative prejudice, which is state wide and is being sponsored by the california historical society for research and labor employment at berkeley. this is part of the team. part of it is community involvement. we want people to become aware of what's around them.

the records are terrible. he lives up nevada city. i told him what i was doing and he was consciencious. he had a stack of clippings about what the new deal had done in his area and walked around while he showed me sidewalks and parks and schools and gardens and camps that had been done. he said, i didn't notice. then he became mayor. it's exactly the kind of thing we want. this is or was the living new deal site about a couple months

ago. it's much denser now. san francisco county is the best documented of all the california counties. we think that all of california will look like san francisco now. when you begin putting in the work of the civilian conservation core, you find it's everywhere. we are talking about a lot of agencies. roosevelt loved building things. he was the lord of the manor at hyde park. it shows roosevelt in his convertible. if you visit there, you could see he could drive using the upper part of his body. he's pointing to the plans of

the hyde park. he was quite a passable architect. once he became president, he was able to build a lot more. even though henry loose was generally opposed to roosevelt. we ran a double page on his to show how the work he had done. i couldn't get it all on my standards. in the west, you would see without the new deal projects, the republican voting sun belt cities wouldn't exist. they were built at that time. so, it's as i say. there was at least a dozen

agencies that left remnants. i am going to give you a primer on all of these. the premise was to put people to work. there were agencies that covered all of these. the land had been ruinned by a variety of things. this is one of the posters and these are archival photographs. this shows the ccc boys. many of them had been riding the rails. they were starving. they were illiterate. here they are in one of the camps, which were run by the army and it was like a military organization. they were out in the wilderness.

you could leave if you wanted to. this was a civilian conservation core. this is not trickle down next. in fact, it worked. it began to float local economies. they did an enormous amount of work. they wanted millions of trees. i looked over into alabama across a great forest of trees that were 70 years old. they're planted in huge numbers. imagine the kind of wildlife that becomes.

they did an enormous amount of work and when the war was here, there was ready to go fight. this was not what this was intended to do. there are a few statues. they built a lot of lodges and visitor centers. these are just beautiful. amount of landscapes of ccc. this is the park. they did the work in them. the civil works administration was short lived. it was to get the people through the winter.

and it was under the administration of a remarkable social worker from iowa named hary hopkins. he was the forerunner of the wpa and the prototype for it. this is a page from the cw a and it showed kids getting hot lunches. that was important. he put 2 million americans to work. and that included about 50 thousand school teachers sent out to rural areas. this is a cw a project. that's stern grove behind it.

they are using wheel barrels. for this reason, many projects were well built. there are no cw a plot. this was one in berkeley placed there and the tennis court at coat niecis park. i was showing a montessory class there. this is an amphitheatre. it's a wonderful amphitheatre. there was from the sidewalks and they just reused it to create other things.

down in menlow park. they built into a caretakers house. the wpa is must more famous. it came after the cw a. it did everything. they put eight and a half million people to work. they built roads. they sewed clothes. they built roads is in san francisco. this one, i have seen them on sidewalks in san francisco. this is on a retains wall in crocket. they are very seldom markers. cw a doesn't. pw a, almost never. not nearly commiserate with what they were doing.

that's one of the restrooms in golden gate park. that's a plaque, carefully hidden. the gardeners prune the vine so you can have a chance of finding it. here's one at park and mont clar. they are using a facility that was built by that. finally, the public works is not well known, but should be. they gave grants and loans for dams and sewage. sewage treatment.

airports et cetera. hopkins couldn't stand each other. and were constantly battling. they kicked the construction industry back to good health. the upper right one is the alameda park station. they could not aid the private agencies. alameda had its own electrical system. these are various projects. los angeles storm drain system. they raised the dam. your water is a product of pw a. they built the sacramento water

reservoir. the fans were so well built that in fact, they are still in use. the engineers said we have to replace a ball bearing. we of course, have neglected our infrainstruct our and it's rated to be a d and dropping. so if you don't pay your taxes, things do fall down. much of it is things that were built during the new deal. fortunately, they built them very well. so the stuff was really built to last. but, if you don't have taxes to run a state. i expect we will see more of that stuff. i will give you a brief tour that we take for granted. the commitment to public

education in all its manifestations. public schools from kindergarten to higher education. there are thousand of new deal schools built within less than ten years. many have art work in or on them. this is berkeley high school. you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. the schools are always telling you that public education can make you better. it should be free. now, public education was fortunatate in california. just in time for them to move in. they build hundreds of schools.

seismically safe schools. when you enter it, you go under a copper marquee. enter to learn. we are all this in together. the public service is a noble thing. this is a san francisco school that might be attractive to so eyes. it was a fire trap. they tore these down and replaced them. george washington. hollywood high school. they have english, latin and greek. this is a middle school in long beach. it wasn't centralized authority. they chose the architects.

the main constraint is there had to be an engineer on site. there there is berkeley. and piedmont avenue in oakland. this is in nevada city. these schools, like so many of the new deal are beautifully built. this is the school you just saw. teaching, they employed tens of thousands of teachers and librariance. new nutritionist. starving children don't learn well. they give them lunches. this is an art class in san francisco hospital. art class for crippled children.

the photographers that i find of san francisco indicate that schools were integrated at the lowest level. you could mitigate the racial problem from the bottom up. there was also adult education too. this 1 learned one learned to read as many did. many of the community colleges were a result of the new deal. sacramento. i gave a talk at santa rosa and the city college in san francisco was largely a product of the pwa and has wonderful art work all over it by the art in action project at the

treasure island fair. and then there's these special schools for crippled children. this is in the mission district and it's a beautiful school with all the features we take for granted because of the americans with disabilities act. it has wonderful tiles. this was not accidental. this is the sunshine school. we made the school as beautiful as possible to take the children's minds off their problems. it was also crippled children. this might sound familiar to you if you know the history of president roosevelt.

he was paralyzed by polio on the threshold of a promising career. he came back and few americans knew how disabled he was. he learned compassion. he learned he could help other people of different races that he never met before. this is what we used his inheritance for. this lead to the polio vaccine. this is one person who reveres him. suzie. she was born with clubbed feet. it's now for spinal diseases.

these were men put to work. you could go to a library and check out toys. these are three themes i identified. beauty, permanence. this is a minor's wife. she doesn't look like a dorothy lang photographer. i am sure she felt better. these are stair cases in new deal buildings. part of the idea, i think this is really an expression of the old arts and crafts movement, which elnor roosevelt was part

it. this was a janitor, once he checked me out, he said, come on in, i have to show you something. there was a beautiful wood laid mosaic. this is a marble mosai c. this is at the national zoo. and there's the beautiful rock work. they didn't build porto potties. this is a restroom in yosemite.

we discovered these above phoenix. then there's art work which celebrates people doing ordinary but indispensable stuff. this is up at timber line lodge. they were not used to seeing them or getting classes in journalism. they would get people in trouble. sometimes the art or the artist got in trouble. let's look at a few of the structures around california. this is built by the wpa. the noblist motive is the

public good. imagine anybody saying that today. this kind of work is a noble endeavor. county courthouses like this one in alameda. city halls all over california in a variety of styles. this one is at burbank. it hasn't been touched. fire stations all over the place. and police stations and armories. this is the police stables in golden gate park and public libraries. and then one at north berkeley. public hospitals. clinics and sanitary. as well as